Question 1 # Evaluation

1) In what ways does this media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?        

My Music Magazine consists of a Front Cover, Contents Page and a Double Page Spread. Each page shows a different layout and, the composition of text and images are different. Within my front cover I have the main image of my artist which is in the centre, the sell lines are aligned to one side of the page; and my puff sits on the boarder, and my masthead spreads across the top. I used colours which worked well and complemented each other i.e. black, white, orange and dark green. I also added in a barcode and a website for audience purpose. Using these conventions I’ve tried to put together a finished front cover by using different technical skills on Photoshop to give a finished quality look to my page.

On the contents page I have my main artist, additional images and text. I decided to adopt some of the former magazines techniques to embed within my own. I looked at VIBE magazine and saw how they split the word ‘contents’ so I used the same affect on my own page. Most of my text runs through the centre and the images are on either side, I decided to use a different approach because most contents pages for magazines have text either on the right or left hand side of the page so I wanted to do something different. I also decided to slant my additional images to give my page a different look because it’s very common to have images which are position straight rather at and angle, it gives a more interesting appeal. I made my own arbitrary logo out of the three main symbols which stand out of my masthead, which was the: O, S and the music note. Having this symbol will allow my audience to recognise my magazine and allows them to be apart of the culture.

With my double page spread I used a natural simplistic background to reflect on my artist and the cover story. I used this idea to steer away from the typical studio shot that would be displayed in a double page spread. This gives it a better appearance because within the location it’s very subtle but speaks a lot and it ties in with the genre of my magazine. I also used other conventions such as pull quotes and heading on this page so that my audience get an insight to what the story is about and my text forms around the main image to give a better affect to the page.

All together my product uses different conventions to put together a realistic music magazine, I used the same colours throughout to show continuity and within layout and composition each page looks different to show that my magazine is versatile to show different aspects to it.